The old version 5.x is in ports now, but with a caveat: you'll not get any security related fixes or another updates at all -- at least if you aren't a paid subscriber.

Quote:

Since this 5.0.375.127 release was pushed by Google almost two months ago, it is not the most up-to-date, secure release. Only paid
subscribers get those, until enough subscribers fund the full port to
get done, after which all patches are eventually open-sourced within a
year. There will be no security fixes or info for these older releases
in ports as Google doesn't provide that or support them. If you want
the most secure up-to-date browser on FreeBSD, you have to pay for it:
either directly by funding this FreeBSD port of Chromium until it gets
done or indirectly through the Firefox/Opera search deals, that make
sure google is the default option in your search engine listing:

I don't have a problem with paid development, but as I said in the PR it's bad practice for the portstree. Nowadays it's crazy to use a browser, that is out-of-date. Furthermore it doesn't make sense to support "shareware" in the ports. User installing this kind of software don't know that they will not get any security fixes or bugfixes at all.

Google Chrome for Linux makes a lot of assumptions about running on Linux, they aren't overly interested in running on other Unix-like systems.

For Windows, they wanted to make use of "technologies" available there.

The same goes for the Mac and Linux ports, the Linux port just happened to be similar enough to get working on BSD.. after some rewriting and patching.

This guy wants to be compensated for the work, which is perfectly understandable, and making available commercial/proprietary software in the ports trees has never been a problem for any of the BSD projects, I believe Richard Stallman has even trolled on OpenBSD's mailing lists about this before.

If you don't want to pay the guy then you have other options available:

Use a different browser, there are plenty of browses based on WebKit like Chrome.

Roll up your sleeves and start working on porting the latest Chromium code to FreeBSD, submit an updated port.

To further clarify, but are you sure the port has vulnerabilities? according to this guys site he's going to be maintaining this official port.. it isn't being pulled directly from the chromium site but his own where he rolled his own distfile.

Do you believe he isn't backporting security/stability fixes for "free" users? because it certainly looks like that's his plan.

To further clarify, but are you sure the port has vulnerabilities? according to this guys site he's going to be maintaining this official port.. it isn't being pulled directly from the chromium site but his own where he rolled his own distfile.

Do you believe he isn't backporting security/stability fixes for "free" users? because it certainly looks like that's his plan.

One beauty of open source, if you don't support it on platfomr Z but it rocks, perhaps some nerd will take a stab at fixing your bungles. A lot of people still seem live in a "Well, it works on MY workstation!" world rather than a "Holy crap, this thing is as portable as the C standard!", no body knows which extreme is worse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BSDfan666

This guy wants to be compensated for the work, which is perfectly understandable, and making available commercial/proprietary software in the ports trees has never been a problem for any of the BSD projects, I believe Richard Stallman has even trolled on OpenBSD's mailing lists about this before.

Chromium is not proprietary software, Chrome is.

Personally I have no problem with the guy for wanting to be compensated for his efforts. It ain't a quick 'make' and pray operation. If the same person is doing the subscriber thing and maintaining the port on FreeBSD however, *that* I would call an alarming conflict of interest. In my eyes if you can't solidly maintain a port, you shouldn't be submitting it to the main ports tree. By solidly maintain, I mean stick with it and push out the work promptly.

The way the subscribing thing is working and the way FreeBSD ports works (hell, just look at broken and forbidden incidents), I don't really think it matters though. The port is of what he's 'released' to the general public in a manor fit for inclusion as it is.